


'S Just Glass

by earthmylikeness



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon, Finale Feels, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthmylikeness/pseuds/earthmylikeness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“I kissed you, okay.” Stiles sighed, put upon. “Jesus, don’t make me </i>talk<i> about it.”</i></p><p>In the wake of his heartbreak Stiles gets magnificently drunk and does something stupid and talks a whole lot. Scott rolls with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'S Just Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Set almost immediately after the S2 finale.

Five days later, and the bruise was still there.

It’s a yellowing purple with flecks of red and Stiles pushed his thumb into it, feeling masochistic, making the skin turn white for whole seconds and a dull throb ring out against the wall of his bone. He felt like he got off easy, with just a bruise, in light of all that’s happened in the past week. It looked pretty badass, if it weren’t for the fact that he was hit by a senile douchebag who had cancer – but that was just Stiles’s life: An endless supplement of setup jokes. A guy walks into a bar, and then, werewolves.  
  
Stiles lumbered out of the bathroom, the music returning full volume as a girl and a dude toppled past him in laughter, blowing him briefly off balance. He was at a party, the sole reason being that he was about 900% sure he would not run into Lydia or Jackson, and that there would be booze. A third of Beacon High was compacted into the tiny halls of the house, music ringing heavy and lacrosse balls flying through open windows, the floors vibrating like they would give out at any moment- but Stiles was not in the state of mind to worry about such things like catastrophe.

He was on a mission to consume as much liquor as he could find. To blur out everything that occurred in the past week. If at all possible, everything that occurred in his life up to this point. It was all crap.  
  
He followed the trail of people with plastic cups as if in a lull. He forgot how he got here, how the week passed, when he slept last. He kept ducking his head, avoiding hellos and bright colors, hating the fact that he could be seen.  
  
Stiles was halfway to the punch bowl when his sweater pocket began to vibrate and he fished his phone out with some difficulty, his motor skills blown to hell from the couple shots in his system already and the lack of sleep.  
  
The phone listed the five missed calls from his dad he knew about, and was currently blinking ‘Scott’ at him, like a reminder that yeah, right, he had a best friend. He thought quite seriously about ignoring it, too, which was new. Stiles took a moment to regroup - trying to rationalize why Scott wasn’t here with him and was all the way on the other side of the phone. He felt empty-handed, like he was caught weaponless in the middle of a nightmare.  
  
Some girl kept screaming at the top of her lungs from the upstairs balcony and Stiles wanted to bury his head in the ground. Maybe hide out in his Jeep for the rest of the year, live off the land.  
  
“You sound drunk, Stiles.” Scott sounded worried, and like he was trying to hide it.  
  
Stiles half-shrugged, though Scott wouldn’t see. “That’s understandable.”  
  
Scott never liked to mother him outright, because he knew it made Stiles skittish, uncomfortable, snap at him unfairly - so he usually did it in subtle ways: made gestures, talked in half-questions and riddles so Stiles would have to respond verbally. Whenever Stiles withdrew into himself, became uncharacteristically quiet, took Harris’s abuse without a word, Scott would ask just once, _are you feeling alright?_ And then he’d leave him to it. But also, not at all.  
  
He would hover at Stiles’s locker and his Jeep, follow him into the bathroom and classes they don’t share without explanation. He’d ride his bike around Stiles’s block for hours on end - and Stiles would sit on his windowsill, biting his nails bloody, watch him go by on a loop.  
  
Scott would turn up at his doorstep, fold down in front of the playstation and play terribly on purpose, groaning and writhing, until Stiles would inevitably be drawn to the couch, mumbling- _give it here,_ taking his controller and showing how it’s done- and Scott would just smile wide like a kid, eyeing him like he hung the moon. And Stiles would grin, successfully pandered to, refuse to look back at Scott even though it couldn’t be helped; just a matter of time.  
  
“Are you at Greenberg’s party? Is that tonight?” Scott’s tinny voice in his ear drew him back to semi-lucidity - and Stiles blinked dully at the wall he’d been staring at.  
  
“Yeah, man. I’m- I’m just hanging out.” He said, raising his voice above the thumping music, rubbing at the back of his head. And because he felt mean and petty, “Since you- uh- ditched me.”  
  
“I told you, I have to study for this test or I’m gonna fail physics,” Scott said on an exhale - and Stiles was briefly distracted by that one girl from that class, smiling at him from the darkly-lit living room across the hall, in the arms of her absolutely shirtless boyfriend who then noticed him and called out, ‘hey Stilinski!’ - and Stiles spoke evenly into the receiver, “what?”  
  
And Scott told him, “what?” and “did you bring your car?” and “you can’t drive, Stiles, you have to be not drunk for that.”  
  
Scott sounded kind of disappointed in him, voice groggy and low like he’d been at home all day, not leaving his room much, and Stiles felt betrayed. Scott had been mostly avoiding everyone as much as possible since that night with Jackson turning- only meeting Derek and Isaac under protest, helping out in laying down plans against the new baddie alpha pack - hadn’t been around much otherwise, but that wasn’t his fault, really. Stiles knew from experience being in the same building with the girl you loved but couldn’t be with, every single day of the week, wasn’t the brightest way to spend your life. Not that Stiles felt any less inclined to blame him in his petulant, bitter state.  
  
Stiles watched blankly as the boyfriend palmed the girl’s chest through her shirt and smack his lips at him - and something vaguely like rage rose up in Stiles’s stomach like bile and he shook his head- breathed, “bye, Scott,” and hung up like a child. He shoved his phone into the back of his jeans and threw back his drink. He didn’t spare much time regretting it, half-enjoying being the bad friend, the shame burning red hot on his cheeks, feet already moving through the crowded hall.  
  
He walked into the dim room, lit by a single fluorescent light, air damp with smoke, someone’s hand thumping him hard on the back and saying- “Hey, two-four.” And Stiles smirked, rubbed at his face with his hand until his bruise felt numb and almost non-existent.  
  
Scott’s last words before he hung up on him was ringing in his head, like the aftershocks of a grenade, his light husk of a voice, asking him - “when are you going home. I’ll come get you. When are you-”  
  
He downed the foul-smelling drink pushed into his hand, putting it forcibly from his mind.

  
\--  
  
Some time that felt like five hundred shots later, Stiles was curled over on the floor, the carpet dry and prickly against his skin. He was too boneless to move, hazy with drunk. There was a leg pushed against his side, and a mouth just by his temple, puffing with laughter and calling him names, calling him ‘buzz-cut’ and ‘crazy fuckin’ kid’ and all of the patronizing things he couldn’t find a smart comeback for in that drab, wasted state of mind, his brain feeling poisoned and like it was slowly eating itself. He threw up a little, twice, in his mouth, and he hoped to god that no one would come close enough to be able to tell, kept pushing away that one freshman girl that was draping herself over his limbs, smelling sweet and wrong. He felt sick. Sick was probably an understatement.  
  
But the world kept on, hands pulling him up by his arms, lights blaring in his vision- his eardrums feeling abused and cut-up. There were faces he couldn’t identify laughing at his slack face, poking at his throat and his ribs and low voices saying, “let’s have some real fun.”  
Stiles heard girls laughing like a faraway siren; drawing him in and making his skin feel overheated.  
  
There was a rough, clammy hand at his chin, another palming the back of his head, warm and hard and pushing him down to the coffee table head-first - towards the neat line of white powder traveling vertically across an Us magazine, an unblinking made-up eye staring up at him. Someone behind him said, “go on,” and Stiles felt something twist low in his belly, something like want and also like regret - like looking into the immediate, destructive future but walking straight into the headlights anyway. Because, because- he didn’t know why.  
  
And then there was another hand on the cuff of his neck, pulling up and away. The sound of a punch thrown, a yell, then silence - other than the music popping obnoxiously still in the background.  
  
Stiles thought for a brief moment that the world had finally stopped. All the people, werewolves, the terrifying future and the crippling past, blood, loss, glaring red eyes that haunted him- had all up and left, leaving him keeled over on the carpet. It was a merciful and yet depressing prospect.  
  
  
The door banged open and Scott hauled him into the bathroom easily, holding up the underside of his arm, painfully tight. Stiles saw a glimpse of his best friend in the reflection as they passed the mirror, his usually lax face scrunched in anguish and panic and Stiles wondered if he was dying. It didn’t feel like he was dying, but what did he know.  
  
Stiles was always supposed to be the smart one, but he’s never been street-smart, or people-smart, or - or _life-smart_. Any of the things that really matter has always been lost on him and people shouldn’t expect him to be able figure these things out. He was far too neurotic to properly evaluate any given situation.  
  
and - well, he had Scott. And Scott was smart where it counted. He could probably tell if Stiles was dying right now, and Stiles trusted him to act accordingly.  
  
Scott felt solid, holding him up. He may have looked frightening to some, mouth slack with rage, his breath heated and his eyes gone electric, turned golden at the edges - but Stiles felt he was in good hands.  
  
Scott pushed Stiles down on to the floor in front of the toilet, put a warm hand against the back of his neck and said, “Go,” and Stiles went, like a secret button had been pushed, and emptied his wretched stomach into the bowl. He heaved dry, his eyes burning and his throat charred, until he couldn’t feel anything except Scott’s firm hand stroking his back.  
  
When Stiles finished, Scott didn’t even give him a second to recover - his hands were in his collars as he pulled him up, pushed him hard against the wall, the towel-rack digging into Stiles’s back like the blunt edge of a knife. And Scott had snarled at him, an inch from his face- “What were you _thinking_.”  
  
And all Stiles could do was laugh - a brittle, rough thing - and maybe try to stay on both feet, weak knees clunking against Scott’s, feeling so young and stupid and so, “so stupid- Scott, I’m.”  
  
That had been precisely the point. Stiles wasn’t thinking. He was so very tired of thinking.  
  
Stiles took a breath and raised his eyes and really looked at his friend for the first time in weeks. Scott and his terribly serious face, somewhat older, tired. Hard eyes, mouth in a distressed line, that crease between his eyebrows that wouldn’t really leave ever since he slid out of Allison’s window for the last time that other night - and now still wouldn’t leave even as Stiles pressed his thumb across it. Scott grabbed his wrist to pull it away, still staring, eyes darting across Stiles’s face like he couldn’t quite place what exactly was wrong with him. If only Stiles could remember how to speak in an earthly language and assure him that it was _everything_. Though he was pretty sure Scott knew that already. He’s always been real smart about these things.  
  
And Stiles was just- so stupid. Where it really counted. Couldn’t even figure out that the perfect girl would never fall in love with him like he did her, that she didn’t even really like him. Couldn’t figure out a way he could both save his friends and also his not-friends - couldn’t protect his dad or Scott’s mom, or _anyone_ , with his clipped nails and rounded teeth. Stiles was good, but weak - the worst possible combination and he lost all the battles he was thrown into, this fucking bruise on his face a perfect testament.  
  
\- but Scott, he was good but also strong. He figured all of those things out and saved everyone, gave up his epic love with a beautiful girl without a flinch - and was even now, single-handedly holding Stiles up from the bathroom floor, looking like the world was ending.

And _Stiles_ , Stiles couldn’t figure out why this- after all of that- _this_ , his stupid rendezvous with some terrible drugs and a gratuitous amount of alcohol was the thing that broke Scott. This, after the worst week in the entirety of their lives, made Scott crumple his face and bite his bottom lip as if it was the only thing keeping him from going crazy, turning wolf, maybe go on a rabbit-eating rampage. Stiles, with his face smudged grey with ash -- And yeah, he felt guilty about that. Among other things.  
  
He wavered, forehead almost leaning against Scott’s – he kept forgetting in his drunken state, that he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this- Scott, so very here, under his hands, like he hasn’t been in what felt like forever, although it was probably only a few days. That would be a terrible thing to do right now, while his best friend was so obviously suffering.  
  
Scott didn’t have time for this. Scott had enough things on his mind, people counting on him, people needing him more than anyone has ever needed Stiles. And Stiles was just holding him back, putting more weight on his shoulders with this tantrum bullshit - crying about a girl, crying about his dad, crying about himself and making Scott listen to it.  
  
But you couldn’t blame him. What were best friends for if you couldn’t go to each other when you had your heart broken? When you didn’t even know if you deserved happiness any more - If the little amount of good that you did, meant all of the badness and weakness was justified, if it made you a hero like your dad thought you were. What were best friends for if you couldn’t even scrape out the bottom of your stomach in front of him, the floor beating beneath your knees, his judging eyes on the back of your head as some sort of penance - the rest of the world spinning on, oblivious, just outside the door.  
  
And anyway, Stiles found Scott first. He had dibs. The rest of them can all go to hell.  
  
He pushed a hand on Scott’s cheek, pulling the skin back to make a funny face that he giggled at uncontrollably, and Scott shook it off, though not unkindly. He looked more upset than Stiles had ever seen him - and yes, yes he felt guilty already - Stiles couldn’t help that on top of everything, he was a lightweight as well.  
  
“If you ever go near that stuff again I’m going to tell your dad.” Scott said, eyes wet and dangerous - so furious almost shaking with it. Stiles wanted to make fun of him, call him _fuckin’ scary, man._ Pinch his cheek and ruffle his hair until his dimple showed itself again, but he didn’t think Scott would let any of it slide. Stiles had strayed too far, made too many mistakes, couldn’t handle the stress, the fear, any of it- and-  
  
And with a heart-stopping, alcohol-induced thought, Stiles was suddenly so sure that Scott would leave.  
  
Leave him here. Behind. Just turn, with a final, blank look, wiped of all emotion - and go. And Stiles would never see him again. Stiles racked through his destructive brain and came to the irrational conclusion that he would deserve it, and much more.  
  
And that scared him so much he started shaking, coming apart- vibrating against Scott’s hold and wringing the folds in Scott’s sweater until he couldn’t stand on his feet any more.  
  
“Stiles,” Scott said, his face gone slack with surprise as he gripped harder, a hand coming up to brace solidly against his shoulder, and Stiles shook his head, not meaning anything by it, not knowing what, and saying “I’m sorry”, through stunted breaths, “Scott, I’m sorry. I’m sorry”  
  
 _I want to help. I can’t._  
  
Stiles wished more than anything he could.  
Maybe not be this useless, bruised, heartbroken teenager and be something better, stronger.  
He was sorry, more than anything, that Scott never had the luxury. Had to be good enough and strong enough so that he could save the day and here Stiles was, whining about it.  
  
“It’s okay.” Scott was saying, breaking him out of his panicked reverie, eyes darting to his, trying to understand what Stiles meant. “It’s okay,” he said, like it was incomprehensible. And Stiles couldn’t really handle that. Shouldn’t be expected to.  
  
“God,” Stiles said, hand pressing at Scott’s face, feeling the gust of warmth on his fingers. “Shut up, dumbass,” he breathed, and couldn’t help but fall forward on a sigh and press his lips against Scott’s cracked-open mouth.  
  
For just a second, he swore - a minute, his eyes sliding shut blissfully. Just until the room stopped spinning.  
  
Scott breathed out, surprised, jerking back- and Stiles curled his finger on his still-cold jacket and drew his upper lip into his mouth, licking tentatively against his teeth. It was terrible. He was terrible. He was counting down on a timer in his head that measured for how much longer this would be socially acceptable, but it wasn’t quite accurate; he kept adding minutes, hours, days of Scott’s knees knocking against his leg, the feeling of his fingers around his wrist. Scott’s breath heated and shallow in his mouth. He kept thinking like a mantra:  _it’s okay. it’s okay because drunk and it’s Scott._  
  
It went on for far too long, too long to be able to misappropriate later, convincingly blame it on something other than what it was, which was just Stiles. wanting Scott and wanting him with him almost constantly and unfalteringly, to a point that it was pretty much unnatural. Not okay to lie about to a best friend. If only he could've helped any of it.  
  
Scott finally pushed him away, a hand on his shoulder - and Stiles zoomed out, bringing back into focus Scott’s impossibly wide eyes, mouth open and bitten red. Stiles licked his lips, eyes stuck there helplessly.  
  
“Sorry,” he said again, and as if it was necessary, told him, gesturing to his mouth, “I just threw up.”  
  
He only heard Scott huff out a laugh crazily, the familiar burr, before he clonked his head forward, promptly fell asleep on Scott’s shoulder for the first time in four days.  
  
  
\--  
  
He drifted in and out of dreams that worried him; people falling from the sky, soft-bodied and muffled wooden sounds on the floor; an open wound, no cure, blood slippery between his fingers and that lingering awareness of it being someone else’s.

He’d jerked awake at some point at dawn, and his head throbbed like a second heart and he couldn’t feel his leg, but at the very least he was in his room. There was a light in his eye, dragging him out of his sleep. And Scott. Scott was here – An elbow wedged against the bed and sitting so close Stiles could count his breaths if he looked hard enough – and it threw him absolutely, much more than his headache or the bad dreams could’ve hoped to.  
  
Scott looked mostly dead, arms hanging uselessly over the sides of the chair. Head conked back, his adam’s apple bobbing almost imperceptively. He looked tired, his limbs too long. His shoulders wide and hunched slightly like Stiles’ dad’s, and Stiles thought as an aside: maybe it was him.

There was an alpha pack or something. Midterm marks were coming in. And on top of everything, Stiles had kissed him.  
  
He kissed Scott. Scott had come too close, and Stiles was far too drunk for it to have been avoided. He had moved forward and into his space in the tiny bathroom like it was the only way he could go.  
  
‘Everything’ didn’t even begin to cover what was wrong with him.  
  
“Were you here all night?” Stiles asked, after staring idly for a while, his voice gone.  
  
Scott raised his head, one eye opening slightly later than the other. “Yep,” he said campily, after a beat. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Stiles wanted to ask why, why he didn’t go home, why he even came to the party, but he was far too guilty to be demanding any explanation.  
  
“How are you feeling,” Scott asked, as Stiles moved his limbs gingerly on the bed, making sure they all remained attached to his body.  
  
He felt like he was going to die. Like his skull had split open and his lungs had shriveled up. But voicing all of that might kill him.  
  
“Fan-tastic, nurse,” he said, turning his neck until it made cracking noises. “You may go.”  
  
Scott stretched his arms over his head and got up from his seat, looking around the room like it was foreign to him, like he hadn’t been in it a million times before. He walked around like a tourist in a museum, covering his yawns behind one hand, squinting in the dim light and picking at his stuff.  
  
“Seriously, you can go.” Stiles said, eyeing the back of his head. He kept staring, small jerks against his better nature, cleanly appalled at the situation and the state of their lives. And Scott turned around, caught him looking, at which Stiles flinched hard, completely obvious. His lips felt very hot and his morning wood, very present.  
  
Scott walked over to the bed and Stiles barely stopped himself from rolling up and tail-lighting it out of there, lock himself in his car until Scott would go far away. But it was mostly because he didn’t think he could stand up right then. Or walk.  
  
Scott crouched down on the floor next to his bed, his warmth and smell floating close and doing unwarranted things to Stiles’s muddled brain, Stiles not having enough mental strength to block that kind of biological force, and he shut his eyes again, started to shift away.  
  
But Scott had a firm hand curled around his sweater pocket, pinning him without force as an unspoken warning against fleeing, running from his problems as Stiles is wont to do. See, this would never work because Scott knew him too well.  
  
“Dude, talk to me.” Scott began, his voice sounding muted.  
  
Stiles opened his eyes, looked at him sardonically, pained. And Scott returned the look, kind of amused and vaguely urgent at the edges.  
  
“About what.”  
  
“Um.” Scott said, a nervous grin spreading on his face. “ _You know._ ”  
  
“Oh my god,” Stiles cringed into his pillow, hating the world. “I veto this. I veto everything. What time is it,” he rolled to his other side and away from Scott. Stiles kind of wanted to hit him for such levity, in this most serious, dire moment in the history of their friendship.  
  
But Scott just pulled him back with a tug on his sweater. “You don’t get a say because I’m the one who hauled your dead weight home, snuck in _without your dad noticing_ \- and took your- freaking shoes off with my bare hands.” Scott waved his appendage like it was dead to him. “You’re basically in debt to me forever, and all I’m asking for right now is what I’m kind of owed, dude.”  
  
“I kissed you, okay,” Stiles sighed, put upon. “Jesus, don’t make me _talk_ about it.”  
  
Scott raised an eyebrow, the corner of his lips rising in exasperation, “Because _that’s_ fair.”  
  
“Life’s not fair.” Stiles said sagely, falling back on the bed, head pounding like a motherfucker. “That should be clear to you by now.”  
He wished Scott would leave, but not really. He wished Scott’s hands were on him again, bearing him down against the cool tiles at his back. The whole situation was very conflicting and doing wonders for his hangover. He shouldn’t have to face the consequences for his actions this early in the day, as common decency.  
  
“This is cruel and unusual.” Stiles grumbled under his breath, trying to dislodge himself from Scott’s hold again, but the hand on him remained. Stiles huffed pathetically, flailing a little against the sheets.  
  
Stiles snuck a look over and Scott was suddenly sitting up against the edge of the bed - looming close, fiddling with Stiles’s zipper in thought, eyebrows drawn low and lips apart as if he was about to say something that might change a lot of rules. And Stiles felt a pang of fondness pass through him like a runaway train, downhill.  
  
“I’m gonna fail physics because of you,” Scott said.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
Scott slid his eyes up then to the side, looking pissed. “Yeah, I heard you the first hundred times. Thanks.”  
  
Stiles chuckled a little, in spite of himself. “Sorry.” He raised his arm without thought - pushing his hand through Scott’s hair. “Sorry, dude.”  
  
He listened to the light clinking of metal, their careful breaths like white noise in the din of the house - Scott said lowly in passing, as if trailing on a thought, “- bad idea.”  
  
And Stiles quirked his lip, reading the lines, “You say that about all my ideas.” He was staring sort of reverently at his own hand as it carded through Scott’s hair, his palm rasping against smooth forehead.  
  
And Scott shook his head slightly. Finally, finally met Stiles’s eyes.  
“That’s because they’re all bad ideas.”  
  
And yeah, maybe Stiles’s hand would break by the end of this, but at the very least it would make Scott smile, laugh at his pain like the perfect waste of a best friend he is, hiding it behind a raised shoulder as if Stiles wouldn’t see.  
  
Stiles took a breath, emptied his head, went off-script. “You love my bad ideas.”  
  
And Scott’s smile faded pretty quickly, making his stomach drop for the fiftieth time in five hours. He didn’t quite know what he was proposing but he knew that he might want it very badly, his fingers curling on the side of Scott’s head.  
  
His vision went suddenly dark as Scott moved away from him like a flinch, and towered over his bed, blocking the light from the window. Stiles lay there for a beat, staring, kind of struck – hand rubbing distractedly at his mouth, committing to memory Scott’s face before he walked out of his room and out of his life. He couldn’t really breathe, gone deaf with his heart pounding in his ears.

  
He felt- more than heard - Scott’s sharp intake of air, the sheets wrenching up from under him and shaking him like a seismic shock.  
  
Scott climbed up on to the bed in two strides, knee coming down on Stiles’s other side - and Stiles immediately raised his hands, reaching up and grabbing at Scott’s neck and face and pulling him down to him, hard. Scott’s hands like stilts, pressing down on his chest and waist, pushing him against the bed, making Stiles feel seasick in the best way.  
  
Stiles focused on the way Scott’s breath grew louder and closer in his ear, his eyes gone so dark they were black. Hushed breaths, heady and right against his face, his eyelids, his throat, pressing his lips against his skin - echoing like Scott was breathing straight into his earphones, and Stiles didn’t really want any of it to stop, ever.  
  
Gradually slowing down to catch their breaths, making out with their hands in each other’s shirts, so careful- like the moment would shatter at any second, pulling and giving and hoping the other won’t move away but too afraid to actually keep him here by force. Until Scott grinded down on his knees without thought, against the place just above Stiles’s leg and they both lost it a little, shutting their eyes and making strangled, high noises in their throats.  
  
Stiles bucked his hips up, deliberately pressing against Scott’s jeans, his tongue between his lips - and watched, riveted, as Scott’s eyes flickered open, lips apart in a gasp and a hand grasped on his arm to steady it.  
  
“Come on,” Scott kept saying, voice choked and rough in the back of his throat like he was on the edge of something, and that both freaked Stiles out and turned him on simultaneously. He knew that his boner would feel perpetually weird about this, and he was going to make peace with that later, when he was less occupied.  
  
He easily ignored Scott’s needy commands and instead wrapped his thumb around Scott’s shirt and pushed it up, and up, and held it against his sternum and simply looked for a second, slack-jawed as Scott’s bare chest pulled in and out in short jerks - Scott sort of glaring back at him distractedly over his hand, lip between his teeth and eyebrows furrowed in a silent but aroused ‘hey, dude, _fuck you_ ’.  
  
Stiles finally pulled at the offending shirt up across Scott’s back and over his head, Scott emerging with static in his hair, a tentative grin spreading on his face. His hands darted jokingly to his chest, covering his pecs with crossed arms - and it was funny, because they’ve seen each other naked regularly since like, third grade, though not exactly in this light. But everything was just- blowing Stiles’ mind like nothing before, regardless of history.  
  
“What are you looking at,” Scott huffed when Stiles had stared for too long. He just ignored him and pressed his palm around the curve of Scott’s ribs, dragged his fingers along the dips in the bone – couldn’t really close his mouth, not that he ever did, naturally.  
Scott was almost supernaturally good looking, hovering over him, shaded by the morning light  – it was the kind of view you’d sell your soul for, seeing your best friend from this angle, half-naked and weighing on you like the earth – but blasphemy, of all things was not uncommon in Stiles’s repertoire. Kind of a default setting, actually.  
  
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Scott breathed and he ducked back in to draw a kiss on Stiles’s bottom lip, run his tongue slick against his teeth - only to move away again, Stiles following his mouth up for a moment. His hands were braced on the bed, his head shaking slowly. “Why are we doing this.”  
  
And Stiles just nodded, swallowed, hands rubbing distractedly on Scott’s knees - like he knew Scott was going to be this annoying and ask _this_ many questions while straddling him with his shirt off. He rapped his knuckles on Scott’s bare shoulder, keeping his face straight despite his obvious and utter arousal and blown equilibrium due to _Scott straddling him with his shirt off,_ and told him, all matter-of fact, “because.”  
  
Because.  
  
Because this? This Stiles was good at. Logic was Stiles’s strong suit, even when said logic was actually lacking much logic - but so were werewolves, and he figured it out. Saved his friends’ asses more than enough times - and he was smart, about this.  
  
And maybe Scott asked because he knew – like Stiles knew Scott would be able to figure out all the important things, and that he’d be good and also not weak, that he’d save everyone without compromise and that he’d _win_ – Scott knew that at the end of it all, Stiles would always be there to explain the trivial ‘why’ and ‘how’, and be damn good at it. Not to justify anything, but to sit there and steer his jeep and tell his best friend with fries in his mouth, exactly why they do the stupid things they do. And why it’s so important that they do it.  
  
“Because it happened, and I can’t take it back. I don’t want to, and I’m not gonna jeopardize our friendship just because you’ve clued in that I’m not just endeared by your stupid face but attracted to it too. That’s not news, dude. And it’s not worth it.” Scott’s face opened in a crooked grin, batting his lashes at the flattery.  
  
“Because it feels good,” Stiles said, his thumb running against the seam of Scott’s jeans to drive the point, Scott’s breath hitching against his throat.  
  
“and terrible,” he continued, “and scary as hell, and it’s probably gonna fuck us up at one point or another but I mean, there are worse things. Like _not_ making out with each other on my bed, you get what I’m saying? Scott?” He didn’t need to ask, because Scott clearly got what he was saying. But his nerves were making him uneasy, Scott’s wide palms against his sides doing nothing but rattling him further.  
  
“Because it makes sense. In the most ridiculous, hilarious, messed up kind of way, but we’re getting kind of good at that kind of sense. I don’t think I need to remind you that you’ve only been a werewolf for like, a fifteenth of your life and we’re already kicking ass and taking names.”  
  
Scott had his mouth on the center of his chest, and he could feel the smirk- Stiles refused to look at him, still. He was talking himself into a sort of trance, staring at his ceiling fan.  
  
“Because, yeah, it’s a little weird. … okay, _very_ weird, but if our friendship needs salvaging at a distant or near future, I’ll let you know. I’ll flash the Scott signal in the night sky and you’ll come running. And whatever, that’s in the future, and we’ll get to it when we get to it.”  
  
Scott pushed his hand under Stiles’s jeans, thumbed the skin just above his hip, and Stiles jerked against the pressure, fumbling his train of thought and swearing at the top of Scott’s head. Scott just nodded against his stomach, telling him, _go on._  
  
“but it won’t be- right- it won’t be necessary because the foundation of our- our- relationship hasn’t changed. It’s never been anything other than this, you know?” Stiles’s hand had returned wrist-deep in Scott’s hair, without his mental input. “It remains: mutual affection, good times had, how you don’t like that jello dessert they give out in the cafeteria but I totally do. I _love_ that stuff. Are you seeing the sense I’m making?  
  
“It’s just been escalated- to the next step. It’s not a very well-known step in the friendship ladder, but it’s the best one,” Stiles assured him, nudging the top of his head with his cheek. “You still got me. It’s- it’s just development. Continuity in the storyline. Just an extra skill set, like- like turning wolf, or- levelling up your enchanting spells even though you’re clearly a bow and arrow kind of guy, know what I mean.”  
  
“Not really,” Scott said, hoarse, hand roaming against his ribs.  
  
Stiles didn’t stop to explain, rambling now at his ceiling. “Because we’re a good team. Nay- the best team, to ever team. And even in this- this terrifying new tier in our friendship we will thrive. We will roll with it, like we rolled with you turning half-wild thing in the middle of junior fucking year. Yeah, there’ll be tough breaks, it will become cripplingly awkward at times, and nothing-”  
  
Scott emerged, rumpled, from beneath his shirt and caught his eyes, Stiles having made the mistake to glance his way. He looked slightly discouraged, squinting and mouth licked wet, like the state of the universe hung on Stiles’s every word. Stiles huffed through his nose nervously.  
  
“-nothing will be the same. Nothing will be simple or easy and- It will definitely hurt.” Stiles rolled his eyes, “A lot. … But you’ll be here, man. and- and I’ll be here. Not of much use, but..”  
  
Stiles tapered off as Scott nudged him, irritated. And Stiles shook his head a little, because he got that now. It’s okay.  
  
“You can break down the door this time,” Stiles said, “and I’ll talk. Let me talk.”  
  
Scott looked at him like he always has; steady and sure and very clearly the best person Stiles knew, and he didn’t remember if he’s ever not wanted this. He couldn’t remember if it was ever an option.  
  
“Because, because.” Stiles told him, eloquently.  
  
because Scott never actually _needed a reason_ to get into the worst kinds of shenanigans with Stiles- and frankly, he didn’t get why he needed one now.  
  
And Scott just smiled, brilliantly, at that, clean and wide like nothing has ever been this good. Exhaled on a laugh and bowed forward, elbows clunking hard on Stiles’s stomach and making him ‘oof’ as he grabbed Stiles’s face in his hands and stole the breath straight out of his lungs like a vagrant. Eyebrows furrowed, making sure he’s careful, that he doesn’t grab too hard or press on his bruise very much, but Stiles could take it. He could take anything like a fucking champ like this, with Scott holding him up. He could break things with his bare hands. He could bench press his own weight and then some, just watch.  
  
“Get off me- get this off-” Stiles mumbled against Scott’s chin, wriggling, his hands clumsy on their belts.  
  
But Scott stayed put, pinning his hands again, kissed him sleepily with closed mouths, a slow tumble in Stiles’s stomach as he deepened it, pulled his lip into his mouth and cocked his head, made Stiles shake under his skin with just his teeth.

 

 


End file.
